North East Herts MP Oliver Heald has raised local fears for the river-based nature reserve at Tewinbury. Concerns for the local Site of Special Scientific Interest have recently been raised by local champions who have discovered discussions between the water company and the Environment Agency to begin testing for a new pumping well just 1km away from the protected site.
Located on the river Mimram, the Tewinbury Site of Special Scientific Interest, or SSSI, is a haven for a number of rare water-based wildlife species including the increasingly vulnerable water vole. Along with the rest of the county, the river used to have an otter population, but pollution and a lack of trout to hunt due to low river flows led to the last recorded breeding female otter in Hertfordshire being at Tewinbury in 1978.
In recent years volunteer work and investment by the Environment Agency have increased wildlife populations with the “triple S I” now supporting a thriving bird population of Reed Warblers.
Steadfast campaigning by Oliver Heald MP and other river activists has led the water company, Veolia (recently Three Valleys Water), and the Environment Agency to seek a new pumping well, or borehole, to alleviate pressure on existing abstraction sites and increase river flows on the river Mimram.
However local river champions, the Friends of the Mimram, fear that once an investment stream begins at the test site which is so close to the SSSI, the water company will be reluctant to sink a new borehole. This would mean that large quantities of water may begin to be pumped out of the water-table just yards away from this unique habitat.
Oliver commented, “Once these fears for this precious local resource were brought to my attention I immediately contacted the Environment Agency. If these fears turn out to be well founded it strikes me as madness that the Environment Agency should spend so much money improving the wildlife habitat only to allow industrial quantities of water to be abstracted just yards away from this precious environmental site.""